Conor oberst quotes

The first music I ever got into was the '80s alternative bands that my brother listened to, like The Cure and The Smiths and R.E.M. and Fugazi. I can remember specifically saying The Cure was my favorite band back in second grade.

We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul.

I'm a real music fan, so I listen to all kinds of music all the time. I listen to a lot of what my friends or people I know are listening to. I'm always checking out new bands.

On good days, I can see the inherent goodness in people, and that human beings have a high capacity to learn and adapt. But things like the environment, nuclear weapons and ideas like peak oil - if you think about them too much, they can really freak you out.

It's exploding bags, aerosol cans Southbound buses, Peter Pan They left it up to us again I thought you knew the drill It's kill or be killed.

For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you're depressed. Will you ever feel ok?

I think in a lot of ways unconditional love is a myth. My mom's the only reason I know it's a real thing.

we made love on the living room floor with the noise in the background of a televised war and in that defeaning pleasure i thought i heard someone say if we walk away they'll walk away

I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long Then you blink and it's gone.

Why are you scared to dream of god when it's salvation that you want?

It's always the negative things that seep through into your consciousness. Most of the positive things just roll off real fast. I just try not to pay attention to it, because I've never read anything about my band that's accurate.

All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.

I want to be enriched by the music I listen to. That's the reason it never really exists in the mainstream. Because that's not what most people are after.

We might die from medication but we sure killed all the pain

In a coma, you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you.

I've never conceptualized much of what I write about. Maybe, once I'm onto something, I'll conceptualize a finished record. I want the songs to tie together and make sense together. I'm not like, "Oh, I want to explore this idea." That's just not how the creative process works for me. It's more like something strikes me, or finds me, and then I wrestle with it after that. I don't sit back in my armchair, like, "What kind of philosophy can I explore today?"

My head's a carousel of pictures and The spinning never stops.

So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock And the guard will say to me, "Oh my patient prisoner you waited for this day and finally, you are free! You are free! You are free!

I'd rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Besides, maybe this time it's different, I mean, I really think you like me.

I need some meaning I can memorize. The kind I have always seems to slip my mind.

Hip-hop music has done a very good job of maintaining the political context, where they stand and not giving a sh-t what people think.

They say they don't know when but a day is gonna come. When there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun. It will just go black. It will just go back to the way it was before.

Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object.

The idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because its kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing.

I've cried, and you'd think I'd be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.

When you look at what people consider success in the music industry, it's just terrible music.

I'm not the most technically savvy person in the world. Like, I'm not good at troubleshooting when stuff happens to my digital music.

I went right from wunderkind to washed up. Old. Been around too long. That's just the way I feel. That's my internal dialogue.

When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I'm a little bit more of a realist now. I think there's a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it's more about choosing your battles.

I have on many occasions spoken my mind from stage. I have offered organizations table space by the merch booth. I have donated a dollar-a-ticket, or the entire guarantee, to different causes. I have registered voters. I have played on behalf of political candidates.

The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.

I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death. Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest." Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

If I loved you, well that's my fault

When people have real faith in something, it's fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.

There's a lot of optimism in changing scenery, in seeing what's down the road.

You can only really understand good if you have bad, so the idea of heaven or anything that happens for eternity, even if it's nice, I can't imagine it being nice forever. Even the idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it's kind of a nice thing to say, you know.

For a song I was bought Now I lie when I talk With a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage I was pushed, With my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it).

The sound of loneliness makes me happier.

On every Bright Eyes record, there's some kind of sound collage that begins it. Some of them have dialogue, some don't. I like it because it can kind of slow down the attention span a bit. It's a way to draw you in to the rest of the record.

I don't hold anything against Barack Obama. I just think the system is so corrupt, it doesn't matter how well-intentioned someone is, as I believe he was and is. At the end of the day, I think it just comes down to money. This is all about class warfare. All of our political problems.

I really just want to be warm yellow light that pours over everyone I love.

I prefer career artists that have spent time honing their craft, as opposed to, 'I won a karaoke contest on a reality show and now I have a record.' That's such a drag. The music that comes out of it is so poor.

I believe that vinyl will outlast CDs.

You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault...

Once you realize that everyone is in the same boat, that everyone is just as insecure and childlike as everyone else, that all these jokers in D.C. ruining our world are just greedy kids grabbing for marbles - I think that realization means you're an adult.

I think it is more like a ghost that has been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing, something more like a feeling.

And the sad act like lepers They stick to the shadows They long to ring bells of warning To tell of their coming So that the pure can shut their doors.

The world's become a little too mean.

I do think that music has a special ability to get behind enemy lines and win hearts and minds.

The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qur'an is mute; if you burned them all together you'd get close to the truth.

I have a car in Nebraska. When I bought it, they gave me a satellite radio, and there's an 'indie-rock' station. It's just nothing I'm interested in.

When everything is lonely I can be my best friend.

Let the poets cry themselves to sleep, and all their tearful words will turn back into steam.

Everything that happens is supposed to be And it's all pre-determined, can't change your destiny Guess I'll just keep moving, someday maybe I'll get to where I'm going

Sometimes I daydream about having a farm and a wife and some babies and watching the grass grow, but you have to meet the right person for that.

Cause I swear that I'm dying, slowly but its happening.

Well morning came, and it dressed the sky in a lovely yellow gown. Shopping malls are opening in that narrow hallway of downtown, filled with people who are shopping for their lovers and their friends, singing "I won't ever be lonely again

I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.

Art is essentially communication. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's why people make art, so other people can relate to it.

If I could act like This was my real life, And not some cage where I've been placed, Well then, I could tell you The truth like I used to And not be afraid of sounding fake.

And in the morning when the sun rise. Look in the water, see the blue sky. As if heaven has been laid there at our feet.

I find that moving keeps me optimistic, the idea of what's going to be down the road a bit or around the next bend.

And me I'm in my bedroom drawing in my notebook Because my hand thinks I'm an artist But my heart knows I'm a poet It's just words they mean so little to me.

I kind of go in waves with reading. Sometimes I read all the time, and sometimes I can't get settled enough to focus.

Screaming is bad for the voice, but it's good for the heart.

Love's an excuse to get hurt.

I try not to think about the idea of reaching more and more people, because once you get in that mindset, I think you lose the point of why you're doing it in the first place. Still, the best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way.

If you love something, give it away...

I'm happy just because I found out I am really no one

Some days I feel like I'm an atheist. Most days, I feel like an agnostic. On a very rare day, I feel like I'm a believer in something.

I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories

Everything must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.

And I never thought this life was possible,You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for. In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer? Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep And all their tearful words will turn back into steam The sound of loneliness makes me happier.

My dad, who plays guitar and piano and was in cover bands, along with my older brother, Matt, taught me guitar and stuff. I started writing acoustic songs and playing by myself in 7th grade.

Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do then hurt me.

And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings.

My Brother went to college To become a doctor And if he studies hard enough He'll end up just like papa, who hates his life.

As long as I can buy records and books and maybe some clothes, I'm pretty stoked. I don't need a yacht or anything.

With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we're never going to know what the full picture is.

There's all body types, but there's just one size.

I wanna be your happiness. I wanna be your common sense pain.

I like the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park. I love how it's been rained on forever and looks worn down by time.

I think our music is more about seeing ourselves in each other and trying to find a more humanistic viewpoint for the world.

The drunk kids, the catholics They're all about the same They're waiting for something Hoping to be saved

I don't feel real confident expressing myself except when I'm writing. I feel kind of scatterbrained. I can see everything from both sides and that makes it hard to reach conclusions. Writing enables me to clarify things.

I think there's a danger, for me at least, in retreating and going inward and depression. I have to stay diligent against that tendency.

i keep drinking the ink from my pen and i'm balancing history books up on my head but it all boils down to one quotable phrase if you love something give it away

I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health. I said, 'There's nothing that I can do for you that you can't do for yourself.' He said, 'Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that that would help.' So I sat with him a while then I asked him how he felt. He said, 'I think I'm cured.'

You should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living, because it's the ones with the sorest throats who have done the most singing.

I don't see any harm in letting whatever comes out come out of you, even if it's sort of weird, or dark, or painful, or too embarrassing, or whatever. I feel like you might as well get it down for yourself. It can't do anything but help you get to where you want to be by recognizing the thoughts that you're having.

Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does.

And your eyes must do some raining if you're ever gonna grow / When crying don't help, you can't compose yourself / It's best to compose a poem, an honest verse of longing / Or a simple song of hope.

A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike.

One by one I drowned all the people I’d been.

One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly.

I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone.

I like science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut, and I really like Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale. And you know, so much of science fiction has to do with predicting what’s to come, so I think that’s really interesting.

I always embrace the worst-case scenario.

If the world could remain within a frame like a painting on the wall, I think we'd see the beauty then and stand staring in awe.

The way my life's structured, I don't stay in a place for more than a couple months.

I definitely think religion is responsible for a lot of the evils of the world. I mean that's not really in debate. But at the same time, I think whatever gets you through the day, whatever helps you make sense of life I'm not gonna begrudge my grandmother with her rosary beads. It works for them. And at the end of the day, I don't claim to know the answer to anything.

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all-time favorite writers. I feel spiritual when reading his words, even though they're translated. I wish desperately that I could read it in its original language. I already feel like I'm going to church when I read him; imagine if I could read it in the original.

Although Omaha is my birthplace and the place I grew up, I don't see myself spending extended amounts of time there. I feel almost more comfortable and more at peace in New York.

I've thought about the idea of, 'Can happiness and creativity co-exist?' So much of what I've done, I think, has been based on being dissatisfied or incomplete or lonely. The answer is, 'There isn't an answer, necessarily.

There's nothing that the road cannot heal

Considering our history, I can think of nothing more American than an immigrant.

Every time I finish a song... most of the time it's in my own head, like this sounds too much like a Townes Van Zandt song, or whoever. I realize there are so many melodies and chord progressions in pop and rock music that are so similar that you can kind of trace it back to other things. Most of the time it's just in your head.

So when your new eyes meet mine they won't see no lies, just love.

Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers and laid entwined together on a bed of clover and left there to sleep, left there to dream of their happiness.

The only thing major labels can really offer is money.

I understand why people get desensitized and roll their eyes when they hear a protest song, or even a politician making some flowery speech. It doesn't really change anything.

I would say I'm a humanist. I like that. I mean, I don't claim to know anything, but I'm curious about it all. I'm always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything.

When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do.

I think there's so much about Rasta culture that's interesting. Just the idea of preaching one-ness, that we're all in this together.

The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself.

It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living

They say it's better to bury your sadness in a graveyard or garden that waits for the spring to wake from its sleep and burst into green.

We've all seen the power music has to spread messages of solidarity and hope.

Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot My twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts I never really dreamed of heaven much Until we put him in the ground. There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free

There's a very fine line between one person's reality and another person's fantasy.

I have many friends who are both Mexican and Mexican-American and others who, I guess you would say, are somewhere in between. The ironic thing is that all three of those categories often exist inside of the same family.

I really believe in the way the energy can consolidate in certain geographical spots. You can find it in a lot of different places, beautiful natural spots, or if you look at Islam or Judaism or Christianity, these ideas of holy places.

I’m always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything. When people have real faith in something, it’s fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.

It seems like everything I do musically I tend to lose a few fans and gain a few fans, and it all kind of evens out.